As is tradition, we find ourselves once again in the heart of holiday movie season. This year's installments include everything from a snowman who "comes to life," shirtless Chad Michael Murray, Jack Black as Satan, and two Donna Kelce cameos. An exhaustive list would be prohibitive for both my editorial resources and your patience, but holiday movies are too dear to too many people to skip an update about what's shaking in this particular glittery snow globe.
Here, we've broken down the highlights of the season, from the heavy-hitters to new franchise installments and goofy titles. There are casting surprises (like stars of The Office), and Hanukkah movies on the way. Many of these TV movies are out as of Thanksgiving, but we've noted the premiere dates of those yet to come.
Let's take a tour through some highlights.
High-profile entries
Every year, a few holiday TV movies poke their heads above the sea of films made for the die-hards — the people who can tell you off the tops of their heads exactly which frequent lead starred opposite Brandon Routh in The Nine Lives of Christmas — and become known to the wider population.
(It was Kimberley Sustad, obviously. She's not only been a great lead for Hallmark, but she's now writing for them, too.)
Here are a few that may reach you even if you are not a close follower of this space. They lean toward Netflix, simply because of its size and reach, as well as the fact that Netflix makes fewer movies and makes a bigger deal out of each of them than some of the other providers.
Hot Frosty
Social media may have given you the lowdown on Hot Frosty, which ran for many days at the very top of Netflix's list of hottest movies. But just in case: Hot Frosty stars Lacey Chabert (of Party of Five, Mean Girls, and roughly 15 prior Christmas movies by my count) and Dustin Milligan (Schitt's Creek). She plays a woman who puts a magic scarf on a very realistic snowman who comes to life; he plays the "comes to life." What follows is a very, very silly — but fortunately self-aware — little comedy also starring Craig Robinson and Joe Lo Truglio (in a Brooklyn Nine-Nine reunion) as local law enforcement. They are in pursuit of the snowman because they believe him to be a dangerous streaker. That's right: a dangerous streaker. I mean, he did come to life without pants on.
The Merry Gentlemen
Speaking of coming to life without pants on: I've always thought the holiday movie market needs more exotic dancers. Netflix comes through with The Merry Gentlemen, in which Chad Michael Murray (of One Tree Hill) and some other shirtless fellows save Christmas. He meets a woman, played by Britt Robertson, who wants desperately to save her parents' struggling small music venue, The Rhythm Room (!). She comes up with an idea: a PG-13 all-male revue featuring hot men she happens to know in her personal life. My favorite supporting Merry Gentleman: a local played by Maxwell Caulfield, who looked great in Grease 2 when he was in his early 20s and looks great in this in his 60s. You go, Maxwell Caulfield. Don't you let them touch your chest hair, either. (This, by the way, is the film that has dethroned Hot Frosty atop the Netflix Top 10 list as of this writing.)
Holiday Touchdown: A Chiefs Love Story
When Hallmark announced Holiday Touchdown: A Chiefs Love Story (Nov. 30) over the summer, it seemed perfectly clear that its intent was to capitalize on the whole Taylor Swift-and-Travis Kelce thing. And don't get me wrong: That's true. (Donna Kelce has a cameo — although hilariously, she also has one in Hallmark's Christmas on Call, which takes place in Philadelphia. No favoritism for Mama Kelce!) Holiday Touchdown was also made as a partnership with the team, much like Hallmark partnerships that have existed in the past with locations like Dollywood (Christmas at Dollywood), the Plaza Hotel (Christmas at the Plaza) and the Biltmore Estate (A Biltmore Christmas).
But Holiday Touchdown is not directly inspired by the Travis/Taylor story. It's about a woman (Hunter King) whose family is obsessed with the Kansas City Chiefs, and they're being considered as part of the team's Fan Of The Year contest. (...Sure.) She meets a guy (Tyler Hynes) who works for the team and becomes the family's handler for the contest while also falling for her (an enormous conflict of interest, tssk). There's a magic hat (sure!), there are many (many many) Kansas City cameos and references, and there is an avalanche of Chiefs branding. This one might be a B for regular Hallmark-ers, but it's an A for Kansas City locals and anybody who's ever shared a sports team obsession with people they love.
And here's the twist! There is a movie that looks directly Travis/Taylor inspired, and it's over on Lifetime. Called Christmas in the Spotlight, it is about a pop megastar and a football player – he's just not a Chiefs player. Glad we could clear this up.
Our Little Secret
Lindsay Lohan was very charming in last year's Falling for Christmas on Netflix; this year, she's back with Our Little Secret, in which she plays a woman who goes to spend the holidays with the family of her new boyfriend and runs into — dun! — her old boyfriend, who's dating her new boyfriend's sister. Kristin Chenoweth has the time of her life as the prospective mother-in-law, and Lindsay Lohan is, yet again, a durably charismatic lead who's still got her comedy chops.
Franchises and sequels
You may remember 2022's Three Wise Men and a Baby, starring three of Hallmark's top leading men — Andrew Walker, Tyler Hynes and Paul Campbell, or as I admit I knew them for a long time while thoroughly enjoying their work, "that one guy," "that other guy," and "oh sure that guy." They were brothers stuck caring for a baby over the holidays. Naturally, we now get the sequel titled Three Wiser Men and a Boy. This is mostly a straight-up family comedy; it's one of several Hallmark is doing this year that are not really romcoms even if they have romance elements. And, driven by the charm of the three leads, it's a lot of fun. (These stories are co-written by Campbell and ... Kimberley Sustad!)
As a side note, it's been interesting to see Hallmark lean into the popularity of their male leads, who, for a long time, were treated as largely interchangeable partners for higher-profile actresses. They're even airing a reality show this year called Finding Mr. Christmas, hosted by Jonathan Bennett, in which men compete for a spot in a Hallmark movie called Happy Howlidays, which will then air on Dec. 21.
Also up: BET+'s Brewster's Millions: Christmas (Dec. 5), a sequel about the niece of Montgomery Brewster, played by Richard Pryor in the 1985 movie. Perhaps not the sequel we were expecting this year, but hey — long waits before stories get picked up again are the norm at this point.
We should also note a momentous franchise retirement: Between 2018 and 2023, Hallmark made the loosely connected films Time for Me to Come Home for Christmas, Time for You to Come Home for Christmas, Time for Him to Come Home for Christmas, Time for Her to Come Home for Christmas, Time for Them to Come Home for Christmas, and Time for Us to Come Home for Christmas. Perhaps owing to their exhaustion of the most familiar personal pronouns, they have seemingly completed this series.
What is that title?
Sometimes, the most enjoyable part of previewing holiday movies is looking ahead to the titles that will quite understandably make you wonder whether you are hallucinating — and then assuring you that you are not. Here are some of my favorite titles of 2024.
A Very Merry Beauty Salon (Lifetime, Dec. 7)
Tia Mowry plays a salon owner who is preparing for a charity ball, and she meets a dashing wine CEO, and what's not to like about that?
The Holiday Junkie (Lifetime, Dec. 14)
Jennifer Love Hewitt co-wrote, directed and stars in this story about a woman who works with her mother as a decorator with a special fondness for Christmas. After her mom dies, she meets a Grinchy man who can perhaps help her deal with grief and also kissing.
A '90s Christmas (Hallmark, Nov. 29)
I am deeply wounded by the suggestion that the '90s are ready for their nostalgia run (I know, I know, you don't have to tell me how the math plays out), but here we are. This one is about a woman who seemingly goes back to 1999 with the help of ... an enchanted Uber? (The description says "a mysterious rideshare experience." I think that means "enchanted Uber.")
Fun with casting
Confessions of a Christmas Letter (Hallmark) is about a mom played by Angela Kinsey (of The Office) who loves her family very much but struggles with her desire to write a competitively braggy Christmas letter about them. Her ultimate goal? To impress the man at the post office who keeps a "Hall of Fame" of Christmas letters. He is played by Brian Baumgartner (who played Kevin on The Office). So she hires a novelist to spend two weeks writing one for her (uh, I am AVAILABLE FOR THIS GIG). While sparks do fly between said novelist and her daughter, this movie is mostly about this woman's efforts to accept her imperfect family Christmas as the one that's perfect for them.
Holiday Mismatch (Hallmark) features two moms who don't get along, who accidentally set up their adult children and then have to try to get them to break up. The moms are played by Beth Broderick and Caroline Rhea, who spent years playing the two aunts on Sabrina The Teenage Witch.
Something quite different: Jack Black's holiday movie highlight up to this point might be, well, The Holiday. But this season, on Paramount+, in Dear Santa, he shows up as Satan (yep), after a kid's misspelling accidentally summons the wrong higher power at Christmas. Also around for this one: Keegan-Michael Key and Post Malone. In some ways, it's mostly surprising that Jack Black hasn't played Satan before now.
What about Hanukkah?
When the big purveyors of holiday movies do Hanukkah, the results can be mixed, to say the least. BUT. Hallmark made an excellent Hanukkah one last year called Round and Round, so I have higher hopes for these entries than I used to. This year, Hallmark has two. One, called Leah's Perfect Gift (Dec. 8), is about a Jewish woman who loves Christmas (though she doesn't celebrate it) and welcomes the chance to participate with her boyfriend's family, only to find things are more complicated than they might seem. It sounds like a tough premise to get perfectly right, but also maybe like a chance for some interesting storytelling.
More straightforward-sounding is Hanukkah on the Rocks (Dec. 13), in which a corporate lawyer ends up bartending for "quirky regulars" at a Chicago bar, goes on a quest for Hanukkah candles, and that's about the size of that.
Also of note
Most Hallmark Christmas movies have until very recently had a pretty consistent soft-rom-com tone, but it feels like they're starting to branch out a little. I enjoyed The Christmas Charade, which is about a woman who gets wrapped up in a spy operation. It reminded me of '80s shows I adored like Remington Steele, where beautiful and well-dressed people have adventures while flirting. More of this, say I!
The 5-Year Christmas Party (Hallmark) floats on the outstanding chemistry between Katie Findlay and Jordan Fisher, who play old friends who keep being tempted to make out all the time. It's lovely and quite funny, and while I was watching this one, I had the thought: "It's nice that women characters in Hallmark movies are sometimes allowed to have short hair now."
To say that Hallmark has a sketchy relationship with diversity is an understatement, but I liked Christmas with the Singhs, which tries to engage with difference in a more straightforward way than their past TV movies. This one is about what it's like to try to manage families with different holiday traditions when they're joined by marriage.
As a person with a long history of watching The Amazing Race, I had a great time with Jingle Bell Run (Hallmark), which follows two people thrown together on a team for what amounts to a Christmas-themed Amazing Race. Obviously they fall in love, and it's super-charming. It stars Ashley Williams and Andrew Walker, who are two of the bigger stars in the Hallmark firmament, and it even gently acknowledges once or twice that they're getting older, which is very welcome. (I mean, it happens.)
If you like Finland, or dogs, perhaps you're up for The Finnish Line (Hallmark, Dec. 1), which is about dogsledding. As a person who has parasocial relationships with many internet dogs, including some sled dogs, this spoke to me personally. (Although I don't think its grasp on the realities of mushing is terribly firm.)
So grab a blanket, grab your cocoa, grab a snuggly person or pet or just your warmest sweater, and enjoy some of the standard and not-so-standard offerings of the holiday season.
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